Lives more important than academic year – Ramaphosa

President Cyril Ramaphosa has said government will close schools if needs be to save lives, as the country weather the storm of the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Ramaphosa said his government would be meeting with stakeholders in the education sector to discuss the planned opening of more grades.

This is after the country’s biggest education union, Sadtu and learner organisation Cosas opposed the reopening of more grades, demanding that schools should be closed until the country passes the peak of infections, which was expected in mid-August.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned countries reaching the peak of Coronavirus infections not to reopen schools as young people were becoming the transmitters of the disease,

“We want to save lives. We are going to sit back and listen very carefully to all the key role players about the reopening of schools. Losing an academic year to us cannot be weighed up against the lives we must lose,” he said.

“Lives are more important. If we have to get to a point of closing the schools, that will be the decision, so be it, because it is about saving lives,” he added.

Ramaphosa was speaking during the second virtual imbizo, where he was fielding questions from concerned South Africans, some of whom raised concerns that schools had become transmitters of the virus.

The president said that although Gauteng and the Western had high rates of infections, the whole country has become a hotspot.

“This pandemic is quite dangerous. It is taking the valuable lives of South Africans,” he said
Ramaphosa also said that that the global pandemic was having a devastating impact on the economy, noting that 3 million jobs have already been lost owing to the virus.

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